And Still

Don sleeps beside me, a gentle purr which over the years of our marriage has pitched toward a rhythmic baritone, filling the room, in and out, in and out.  Koda, our aging malamute, lies at the end of the bed, she does her six circles before finally falling asleep in a tight ball.  Even the neighbourhood owl offers his incantations for the night, the sliver of the moon casting shadows in my well-worn bedroom.
 
I’m awake but not for long.  I have my own rituals, so private no one knows. I couldn’t explain this if I wanted to. And no, I would never tell Don, it would hurt him though he wouldn’t show it, he shows so little. And so, in the serenity of pre-sleep, under the brightness of the moon, in the part of the day that is well and truly just mine, I allow myself to count the days and years and wonder will I ever run into you again. And if I do, what would I do?
 
Your name is Ari, I know that.  I know you’re a flower distributor from Toronto. I know you love flowers and have since you were a child, against your father’s wishes. I know you have two children and a wife. I know how you grieved the loss of your daughter. You told me. No, you showed me. So crazy. A plane ride gone wrong. First, seat partners, then dinner partners as we were stranded in London, and then drunken partners in crime. We raided my room, we raided the mini bar, we laughed hysterically, I shared my cheezies, you shared your licorice from Amsterdam and we talked and talked and talked and laughed like we were teenagers until finally exhausted we crawled onto my bed and fell into a deep sleep, me curled into you, you curled around me. But grief has no boundaries and yours came at dawn. Deep resounding grief, tears unshared because how do you grieve when everyone in your family is broken with her loss.
 
When we said goodbye you wrapped me in your giant arms, kissed me on my forehead and said I’ll see you soon. Because I had to believe that I would see you soon or I would never have let you go. I saw your wife pick you up at the airport. Her beautiful face, worn with grief, yours reset into a hardened grimace, the face I first saw on the flight. I saw you pause and look for me and look again and again. Even as you drove away, you looked.
 
It was one short evening together against a lifetime apart. Maybe that evening transported us both back to who we were before life happened. Here we are twelve years, and 157 days later. I go over that night over and over again, not to cause myself pain, not to say, we went the wrong way, but to acknowledge that you and I exist somewhere in the continuum of time, that we were so alive to each other, however briefly.
 
The flush I feel at the sound of your name is less of embarrassment than of laying bare, of being torn open, of someone turning the on the light and seeing me for the first time. It wasn’t meant to be in this lifetime, maybe nothing like this feeling is meant to be sustained over a lifetime, a forever thing. Maybe life is just these magical moments in time, fuel to carry us through wherever we find ourselves.